In many systems, multiple applications, data connections, or other data streams may contend for the same network queuing resources. For example, data from these and other sources may contend for a limited amount of queue space in a network adapter (e.g., a wireless radio, a network interface card, a network controller, etc.). In certain systems, the network adapter may be unaware of data (and characteristics of the data) until the data is queued in the network adapter. Thus, contention for network adapter queue space may reduce the effectiveness of quality of service, class of service, traffic shaping, congestion management, or other traffic management technologies that are, or otherwise would be, implemented in the network adapter.
In addition, use of network adapter virtualization technology (e.g., to enable resources of an underlying physical network adapter to be shared by multiple virtual stations or other virtual adapters) may further impact the effectiveness of traffic management technologies. Although network virtualization technology may enable multiple virtual adapters to access to a communications medium via a shared underlying physical network adapter, the use of many virtual adapters may also increase contention for network adapter queue space.